Great Bay Half Marathon

Prior to race day, Jess and I decided to drive up Saturday and pickup my race number and then drive the race course. I wanted to drive the course because the topography map shown on the race site was set at such a huge scale it was hard to tell how hilly the race actually was, but I also wanted to mentally prepare myself for the race as well. Going into this race I wanted to see if a Personal Record (PR) was attainable.

With course map in hand, Jess and I started driving the course and at about mile 2.5 to mile 5 the course turned into a packed down sand/gravel road that was loaded with potholes. I was like you have to be kidding, we are running on this? So I stopped to check to see how bad it was to run on and it wasn’t that bad at all. We continued driving and miles 2.5 to 5 were rolling hills with nothing major that had some down hills. Once we got past mile 5 was right where the hills started. It started with a huge downhill into a little valley right to a good size hill right at mile 6 and mile 7. The good thing was that after each hill at mile 6 and 7 was that there was a flat section with little rolling hills, which made for a great recovery from the two hills. The great part of the race was going from miles 8 to 9 since it was mostly downhill. Once we reached mile 9 it was flat all the way to the home stretch with the exception of a small hill at mile 12.2 or so.

Jess and I arrived race day around 10am, which gave me an hour to the start of the race. I went for a about a 10 to 15 minute warm-up run and then came back and stretched out. While stretching out my shin splints were bothering me and I was still considering whether or not I was going to try and race in my racing flats or my regular training shoes. I ended up racing in my racing flats and right up to the start I was wondering how much of a good idea this was going to be since I’ve never run a half marathon in racing flats. Needless to say after stretching out I seemed to be okay. Right before the start I went for another 10 minute warm-up run to make sure I was ready to go and then headed for the Starting Line.
I lined up right on the Start Line since they started it a 6:00 minute per mile pace. My race strategy going into the race was not a PR because of the hills so I figured I’d still be around a 6:24 per mile pace. The first mile ended up being a 5:58 and it was comfortable. I was also surprised to find myself in the front pack of runners with the exception of two runners who were running the first couple of miles at about a 5:30 per mile pace. At mile 5 things started to thin out and left me with a pack of four runners. It was a great group that I ended up running with and we even ended up talking a little during the race. I stayed behind them because after mile 5 we were running into the wind. I figured, why should I spend my energy to break the wind when I could use them to do it. We ended up running as a pack of 4 right up to mile 12 and that was were everyone started to thin out and head for a strong finish. Since this race was my longest run of the season, I ended up hitting the wall right at the last small hill at about mile 12.2. It wasn’t till I looked at my watch at mile 13 did I realize I was about to set a PR for the half marathon. There was no sprint to the finish for me since my legs were so cramped, but needless to say I was happy when I finished with a time of 1:18.19, which is a 5:59 per mile pace. Once I got through the finish line chute it was great to see Jess smiling and saying, “You beat your old time and I got some great pictures of you!” I ended shattering my Half Marathon PR by 6 minutes! My previous PR for the Half Marathon was 1:24.16 (a 6:24 per mile pace) at the B.A.A Half Marathon that was held on October 7, 2007.

My time was good enough for a 6th place overall finish and I was 1st in my age group by about 9 minutes! After I finished I grabbed a bottle of water and a bottle of Accelerade. Accelerade has become my recovery drink of choice and I almost prefer this over Gatorade. After hitting the recovery tent, Jess and I headed for the gym so I could stretch out. The funniest part was when I entered the gym, the people that had been waiting for their loved ones and friends to finish thought I was the 1st place finisher and started clapping for me! It was great and I didn’t mention I was the 6th finisher. Hahaha! After stretching out we waited for the awards ceremony. The awards were great! I ended up getting a mug and inside was a gift certificate to Margarita’s Restaurant for 2 free dinner entrees and a 50% off gift certificate on any of the Loco Running shoes they offer. (Loco Running was the race organizer who also happens to make shoes and is a running club in NH.) Overall I ended up winning about $100 dollars in gift certificates, not bad for a $40 dollar registration fee!

Overall, I was thrilled, psyched and amazed that I was able to pull off such a great Half Marathon time with only 11 weeks of training under my belt. I can’t wait to see how I make out in my 2nd year of triathlon.

Here were my mile splits from the race:
1 – 5:58
2 – 6:03
3 – 6:00
4 – 6:03
5 – 5:54
6 – 5:55
7 – 5:45 (mostly downhill at this point)
8 – 6:04
9 – 5:54
10 – 5:54
11 – 5:54
12 – 5:57
13 – 6:14

Week 10 - Recap (Half Way Mark)

Week 10 was back to normal for swimming and running and was disappointing in the bike area yet again. I’ve been sick of riding the trainer inside for the last 9 weeks that I just can’t wait to get outside and ride. Once the weather warms up to Spring like temps, I’ll be outside on the days I’m supposed to bike. I ended up taking three rest days this week since Tuesday and Sunday I didn’t up biking. I did, however, have a great 7 mile run on Wednesday, which I ended up running at a 6:03 pace for a time of 42:38. I’m hoping this is a sign of things to come for my Half Marathon coming up on Sunday, April 6th. I’m also happy to report that I’ve made it to the half way point in the training program! I can’t believe that I’m at the half way point and only have 10 additional weeks left of training before my first Half Ironman. My training plan ends up peaking at Week 17 and then has a 2 week taper prior to race day.

As a side note, my friend Scott DeWire, who lives in North Carolina ended up running a Half Marathon PR despite having chest pains and cramping. Congrats to him! I had to mention it since he happen to beat my Half Marathon PR by 31 seconds. Congrats! My Half Marathon PR is 1:24.16, which I ran on October 7, 2007 at the B.A.A. Half Marathon.

Here are the totals for Week 10.

• Swim – 6,732 yards (3.8 miles)
• Bike – 30 minutes
• Run – 16.31 miles

Week 9 - Nothing to Write Home About..

Well the title should say it all for Week 9 only because I wasn’t able to swim with my hand being stitched up. I was still able to manage some decent run miles and a little bit of biking, but this week was essentially a rest week. It will be nice to get back into the swing of things after a disappointing Week 9. I can also report that I’m finally healthy! No more IT Band issues and what a great feeling to be running injury free.

Here are the totals for Week 9.

• Swim – 0 yards
• Bike – 150 minutes
• Run – 15.74 miles

Week 8 - Recovery Week Recap

Week 8 was a great recovery week, but I ended up taking to many recovery days only because I couldn’t get the time in for training this week. For those of you who don’t know I try and get most of my training in during the week so I can spend time with my girlfriend Jess on the weekends since we are so busy during the week.

This past Thursday, March 12th was my birthday and it just so happened that I was able to attend an informational meeting with the nutritionist Nancy Clark. Nancy has worked with many triathletes, runners and players from the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics. I attended this meeting in hopes of learning about pre-race, race day and post race nutrition, but it turned into more of a Q & A of just about everything nutrition related; so much for nutrition information on race day! I did take something away from the meeting, which was that all the training you are doing for your body you are also training your body by what you eat when you train.

Also, this past Saturday was interesting to say the least. I ended up having to drive myself to the ER because while I was washing my dishes, of all things, I ended up slicing my right pinky finger. I ended up with 3 stitches and was told that I couldn't get it wet in the next 2 days. So much for swim workouts in Week 9! Depending on how the week goes I may try and swim or I may not since I really don't want the stitches to pull out.

Aside from the nutrition meeting and the thrill of this past Saturday, my running mileage and bike time is down from what my goals were. Here are my totals for Week 8:

• Swim – 5,236 yards (2.97 miles)
• Bike – 105 minutes
• Run – 10.44 miles

Week 7 - Recap

Week 7 was my last week of 3 weeks of hard training and what a relief to be entering my second recovery week. I was absolutely tired come Friday. With those that are not familiar, my 20 week training plan is set up with a recovery week every 4th week, which essentially allows the body to recover from the previous hard weeks while still training but doing less miles, yards etc.

My bike time was down from what my training goal should be, but is up from last week which is good. The groin tightness has finally gone away and with 2 weeks left of Physical Therapy my IT band has finally been comfortable/tolerable to run on which has been great. If anyone hasn’t had an IT band injury, it’s more annoying than anything. The IT band starts at your lower back/butt and goes all the way down your leg. My trouble has been on the outside of my knee, which is where the friction point is of the IT Band. When the IT Band is tight it rubs on the bone of the knee causing some pain, but I also noticed that it shortened my stride a little not allowing me to run at my full potential. I can safely say that mine was caused from overtraining and not enough base mileage. As you may recall, this has been bothering me since October and back in October I was racing just about every weekend and hardly training during the week.

Here are my totals from Week 7 below:

• Swim - 6,512 yards (3.7 miles)
• Bike - 105 minutes
• Run - 17.34 miles

Week 6 - Recap

Well Week 6 was a little disappointing on the bike end, but the swim and run totals were right where they were suppose to be. The week started out great but then come Tuesday my groin injury from the 2006 season decided to act up again and was tight most of week and prevented me from biking all week. As well as my groin tightness and tenderness bothering me my IT band has been tight since the beginning of my training regimen. For those of you that don’t know, 2006 was supposed to be my first triathlon season, but I was on the DL for about 6-7 months with a severely pulled groin injury which took 2 visits a week for 6 months of Physical Therapy to recover from. Since I knew how long it took to recover from that injury I decided that I needed to add a more regimented stretching routine to my training plan. I normally stretch out prior to biking and running and do a few stretches prior to swimming, but I have now begun a stretching and strengthening program that I try to do twice a week. I have also started stretching for about a half hour before and after each run and bike session that I have as well. With this all in place my groin and IT Band were fine by the end of the week and I was able to pull off a great 5K (see post from yesterday).

As a great tip for triathletes and runners alike the best investment you could make is in a foam roller or a foam roller ball. This helped me with my groin injury and is great for rolling out just about every inch of your legs before and/or after a hard run. I picked up my foam roller and ball up at http://www.performbetter.com/

Here are Week 6 totals below:

• Swim - 5,616 yards
• Bike - 30 minutes (1 lousy session)
• Run - 20.95 miles

Kelly's Pace Hare Hop 5K - March 2, 2008

The race itself was great and as always, Johnny J. Kelly was there to start the race. If you don’t know who Johnny J. Kelly is, he was the 1957 Boston Marathon winner. The reason why I went home for this race was because not only was this the weekend that we were celebrating my mom’s birthday, but also my wonderful girlfriend Jess’s birthday as well. They were actually born on the same day, March 4th! I also scheduled this race in because the last time I competed in this race was back in High School with my fellow track and cross country runners Mike Weckworth and Dave Tetlow. When I was speaking with Dave a few weeks prior, back in Feb he was talking about doing this race and I said lets do it together since we hadn’t raced together since high school as teammates.

(Below - Dave and I warming up prior to the race.)

The weather for the race wasn’t too bad and was about 40 degrees, but the wind was cold, blowing at about 14 mph making it feel like it was in the 30's! Once I was warmed up and ready for the race it wasn't too bad.
My plan for the race was to run it as hard as I could for as long as I could but I was thinking that would be at about a 5:45 per mile pace. Well sure enough, my first mile was a 5:15 split! I was shocked and yes I was very much sucking wind, trying to stay with the lead pack of runners. The lead pack was one 37 year old, me and 2 other 20 something’s. Things quickly thinned out after the 1st mile with the first 3 runners taking off after that. I stayed back in 4th place and let them go since they were running a whole lot faster than me. Also, how could I forget to mention at just over a mile in my left shoe came untied and the thought came to me of how many times does a coach tell you always to check your shoes before a race. I was like, you have to be kidding me, this isn’t happening to me. Well I continued running and didn’t stop to tie my shoe. The good thing was I never lost my shoe and was able to finish with it still on, but barely!

I ended up finishing 4th overall with a very comfortable lead and 3rd in my age group with a total time of 17:19, which was a 5:35 per mile pace! It was exactly how I wanted to run the race! Dave ended up running it very well as well and finished 7th overall in a time of 18:41 which was a 6:02 per mile pace. I’d have to say that he hadn’t been running much at all so he was happy with how he ran.

(Above - Finish Line - 4th overall)

My dad also is trying to make a come back to the running scene since he is still dealing with his Achilles Tendonitis, which I would have to say has been a struggle for him and very frustrating. In the mean time he has taken up biking and swimming to keep in shape with the possibility of maybe, just maybe, making his début in the Triathlon World this year. He was able to run the race as well but as more of a training run than a race since this was his first week back from being on the DL. He ran a little faster than he wanted but still managed a great finish with a time of 24:37, 51st overall and 8th in his age group of 40-49 which was a 7:56 per mile pace.

If you have been following my blog, I had mentioned that Jess was going to run this race as well, but after a tough week of being sick and recovering she was unable to run it.